The International journal on drug policy
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'Evidence-based policy' has become the catch-cry of the drug policy field. A growing literature has been dedicated to better realising the goal of evidence-based drug policy: to maximise the use of the best quality research to inform policy decision-making and help answer the question of 'what works'. Alternative accounts in the policy processes literature conceptualise policy activity as an ambiguous and contested process, and the role of evidence as being only marginally influential. ⋯ As such, social construction provides a framework for critically analysing the ways in which 'policy-relevant knowledge' may not be a stable concept but rather one which is constructed through the policy process, and, through a process of validation, is rendered useful. We have limited knowledge in the drug policy field about how this happens; how ambiguity about the problems to be addressed, which voices should be heard, and what activities may be appropriate is contested and managed. By unpicking the values and assumptions which underlie drug policy processes, how problems are constructed and represented, and the ways in which different voices and knowledge(s) come to bear on that process, we may begin to see avenues for reform which may not at present seem obvious.
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Int. J. Drug Policy · Sep 2014
Governance versus government: drug consumption rooms in Australia and the UK.
To evaluate, through a case study, the extent to which elements of governance and elements of government are influential in determining the implementation or non-implementation of a drugs intervention. ⋯ Both governance and government are useful frameworks in conceptualising the policy process. The governance narrative risks overlooking the importance of traditional government structures. In the case of drug consumption rooms in the UK and Australia, a focus on government is shown to have been crucial in determining whether the intervention was implemented.